Winter Wonderland
by ally.enchantress
Summary: He was yelling, 'Stop, Mommy, stop' But I was chasing snowflakes! Until I chased one into a lamppost...and broke your father's arm." Bernadette Stabler. Season: 10, Episode: Swing


**After watching Swing, I decided that there was absolutely no way that little Elliot's story could not be told. The poor boy's arm was broken, for goodness sakes! And it looked like Olivia was shocked by the revelation. Which implies to me that she was told some other story, and implies to me (and my ever-present creative privilege) that there was some connection going on in her mind with some other incident she had witnessed. Again, creative privilege is utilized throughout this story.**

**Disclaimer: Dick Wolf, in all technicality, I'm not sure the child versions of whatever publicly recognizable SVU characters you see in this story belong to you. My lawyer, Chloe, will be visiting you shortly with the legalese you require.**

* * *

Snow built a barrier between him and the outside world. Young Elliot Stabler sat at his window and watched the white walls grow higher and higher, wondering if he could build an actual building out of snow. Maybe he would try that with his blocks.

Happy to have an idea, Elliot left the cold glass and knelt beside the enormous stack of red, blue, and yellow blocks Mama had bought him for his birthday. His father had protested, saying that his son would benefit more from a book, but Mama had pushed and pushed, and finally his father gave in. In this way, Elliot gained his second set of blocks, and the first set with such bright colors. He liked the colors. They were so pretty, and they shone in his eyes. Surely they would look even better against the snow.

Elliot picked up the big blue block first and, after strenuous deliberation, placed it very carefully in the middle of the floor. Around it, he put four red blocks, and he surrounded those with yellow blocks. Now came the hard part. Being very cautious so as not to disturb the foundation, he built another story to what would soon be a skyscraper. And then he leaned back on his elbows and sized up the structure. If he was going to make it taller, he would have to save up his blocks. He was running out of them. It was funny; he thought there were more blocks than that. Oh well. Grabbing another block, he centered it on the tower base, made sure it was just right, and built another layer encircling it.

Hours were spent on this tower, and Elliot became more and more excited with every passing second. This was going to be his best ever! Every single building he had ever built was in his photo album. When he finished with one, he or Mama would take a picture of it, and then it would go in his album. So far, he had probably about a million pictures and, as Mama called it, a met-tra-poh-liss. Elliot wasn't sure what that meant, but Mama said it was like what New York City was. A whole lot of really tall buildings together in a city.

He grinned. If what he was doing was called met-tra-poh-lize-ing, then he would make it as big as possible. Maybe when he grew up more he would build a whole met-tra-poh-liss all by himself.

"Elliot?" called a voice. It was his mother.

"Yes, Mama?" Elliot answered, steadying the last block in his hand, the one that would go on top.

Mama opened his door and peered into his room, her blue eyes shining with excitement. When she saw his tower, her entire face lit up like a Christmas tree, and she congratulated him on such a wonderful building. Elliot smirked, proud of himself. "Elliot," Mama said, "do you want to go driving?"

"In the snow?" Elliot asked, astonished and thrilled.

Mama nodded. "Of course! We're not snowed in, dear, but everyone else is! Nobody will be outside, and we can drive all around the city!"

Nodding his enthusiastic agreement, Elliot hastily placed his last block on top of the tower and ran after her.

* * *

"Look at it, Elliot," Mama said dreamily, her head spinning on her neck as she tried to look at absolutely everything. "Isn't it beautiful?"

Elliot nodded, his eyes wide, their blue depths taking in the winter wonderland before him. It was amazing, he thought, and Mama was right. Nobody else was driving with them. The only ones who were braving the cold today were a blonde woman, heavily bundled up in coats and hats, and a small girl in a big blue coat, who kept trying to grab her mother's hand. The woman would always shake her off, but then the girl's bare hand caught hold of her mother's coat, and the woman allowed the contact, her own gloved hands shoved themselves deep in her pockets. The little girl turned her head suddenly and met his eyes.

"Oh, look, Elliot!" Mama drew him back to the present, pointing at something Elliot could not see. "See the snowflake? Let's follow it!" She pressed her foot down on the pedal that made the car go faster, and the girl and her mother disappeared behind them.

"Where'd it go?" asked Mama, confused. Elliot shook his head, wishing she would not drive so fast. The girl looked cold; he wanted to go back and give her a ride. Her brown eyes were so pretty… "Oh, well," said Mama, "I'll find another one!" And the car accelerated again, chasing another snowflake.

Elliot did not like this game. Buildings were speeding past, way too quickly. The roads were slippery, and the car was sliding all over the place. Mama turned sharply, and he heard the wheels screeching against the ice. "Mama? Mama, slow down!" he said, but she did not.

"I'm chasing snowflakes," she told him.

She went even faster, and then suddenly, "Oh, that cheeky little thing! It went the other way!" And she yanked the wheel to the side. "We'll catch it, sweetheart. I promise."

Elliot clung to the door handle as his mother made a sharp U turn and faced the other direction. "Come on, Elliot!" she laughed, a smile fixed firmly on her face. "Let's get it!" The car continued to turn, spinning wildly out of control, and Elliot screamed as he was thrown, seatbelt and all, against his mother, who was laughing with delight. "Oh, it's like a roller coaster!" she said. Slowly, the car regained its control, and Mama immediately took off back in the direction they had come, chasing after the single snowflake that Elliot could not see.

Faster and faster she went, and Elliot watched the same buildings fly past him again, and he watched the little needle that was supposed to tell how fast you were going inch past a hundred. "Mommy!" he screamed, his high, child's voice ringing ineffectively in his ears. "Please, Mommy, stop!"

"So many snowflakes, sweetheart," Mama laughed, unaware. "I'm chasing the pretty snowflakes, Elliot, help me!"

"Stop, Mommy, stop!" Elliot cried, tears flowing from his eyes. "Mommy, please! Stop!"

But his mother was deaf to his pleas and tears, driving faster and faster, and Elliot looked out the window quickly, just in time to see the brown-eyed girl again, watching his car go by with fear in her eyes. Then he turned his head back to face front, terrified he was going to be sick.

He saw the lamppost a second before they hit it. And then the winter wonderland his mother was so overwhelmed by disappeared in a haze of red as the car stopped with a big bang and crash. Elliot screamed as loud as he could, completely horrified, and he heard his mother crying softly.

There was a horrid pain in his arm, and he cried harder as it threatened to make him pass out. "Mommy?" he whimpered, hoping she could hear him over her own tears. "Mommy, it hurts."

But his mother had no comfort for him. All she could say was, "I'm sorry, baby. God, I'm so sorry."

A new voice reached his ears, one soft and clear, definitely from a little girl. He looked around through pain-filled eyes and saw the brown-eyed girl tugging her mother over to where the car was. Her mother was apprehensive, but the little girl pleaded and, when her cries went unheeded, broke free of her mother's restraining grasp and ran toward Elliot. "Are you okay?" she asked in a sweet, child-pitched voice. She was probably three years younger than him.

"My arm hurts," Elliot told her, praying to God that she would help his mother.

The girl nodded. "Can you get out?"

Elliot tried, shifting around a little, but his legs were stuck, and his arm hurt to move. "No!" he said, and his tears renewed. He was immediately embarrassed about crying in front of this girl, but he could not stop himself.

Thankfully, the girl seemed to understand. "It's okay," she whispered. "It'll be okay. My mama's calling the ambulance. What's your name?"

"Elliot," he said.

She smiled soothingly, tucking her long brown hair behind her ear. "That's a pretty name. Elliot, everything's going to be okay." She slipped her tiny hand into his uninjured one.

"Will you…" he was not sure he should ask, but she seemed to willing to help that he did anyway. "Will you pray with me?" he asked.

At this, the girl bit her lip nervously. "I…I don't know how," she confessed.

"I'll teach you," Elliot promised. "We'll say the Lord's Prayer, okay?" Maybe God would make the pain go away. Surely He would make his mama safe. The girl nodded slowly, and Elliot began. "Our Father..."

"Our Father," she repeated.

"Who art in heaven…"

"Art?" she asked, and when he nodded, she said, "Who art in heaven."

"Hallowed be Thy name."

And in that fashion, he taught the nameless girl how to say the Lord's Prayer, and they said the same thing over and over again until the ambulance came. He was put in an ambulance, and the girl reluctantly let go of his hand. "Bye, Elliot," she called as her mother grabbed her hand firmly.

"We're going home," she insisted, and the girl allowed herself to be led away. Elliot wanted to ask her name, but she had vanished, swallowed up by the storm.

* * *

The doctors said a lot of things to him, but he really did not understand anything they were saying. He wanted to know if Mama was okay, and they said she needed stitches, but she would be fine. He asked if he was okay, and they told him he was fine, too. He asked when he could go home, because he really did not like being in the hospital, and they said he could leave soon. But they had said that the last time he asked, too.

Finally, he saw his father outside the room. He showed the doctors his badge, and they let him in. Elliot got off the table and hugged him, waiting for comforting arms to encircle him, but they did not.

"Son, what did I tell you about crying?" he asked.

Elliot straightened up, wiped the tears from his eyes with his good hand, and remembered that his father did not give comfort. "There's no crying in baseball, sir," he intoned.

"Good man," his father said. "Now let's go find that crazy woman who got us into this mess."

They walked down the hall, Elliot wincing in pain when movement jostled his arm. Once, he let a hiss of discomfort escape him, and his father grabbed his arms and shook him, summoning tears to his son's eyes. "Showing pain is a sign of weakness," he said firmly. "Never show it. Not unless you want to be acknowledged as the baby you are." After that, Elliot did his best to ignore the agony.

His father shook his mother, too, when he found her, and asked her why in H-E-double-hockey-sticks she would have gone out driving with her son in a blizzard, and then he told her that she had D-A-M-N well better be able to pay for a new car, since she had totaled this one. Elliot jammed his fingers and stopped listening while his father yelled cuss words at Mama, who glared at him as she cried.

* * *

Stiffly, Elliot got out of bed and looked around his room. There was more snow outside, and it covered his window now, so he could not get out that way. His father had locked him in his room earlier, and Elliot thought that was the last time he had come in that night. But, when he looked to the middle of his room, he saw the tower of blocks he had built, another part of the met-tra-poh-liss he was making, the one he had not yet gotten to take a picture of, and he saw that it had been knocked over. The only bits left were the scattered blocks all over the floor.

He heard sniffling in the corner, and he saw his mother sitting there. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart," she whispered. "About your arm and your tower."

Nodding, he sat up in bed and examined the rubble remaining from his skyscraper. "It's okay," he said softly. "I can do it again."

* * *

**Was it too stupid? Too cliché? Was it awesome? I promise I'm not letting up on Hate, but I did feel the insatiable need to write this scene after seeing Swing again during the EPIC "More Than Partners" marathon about Olivia and Elliot, who clearly "deny" that there is "something going on" between them. Quoting from the USA commercial. Any questions as to who everybody was? That little brown-haired, brown-eyed girl was so sweet to little Elliot. So adorable… *sigh***

**Pleasepleaseplease review! I would LOVE a donut! 3**

**~ally**


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